Hans-Lukas Kieser is a prominent Swiss historian and leading specialist on the history of the late Ottoman Empire, the birth of modern Turkey, and twentieth-century state violence. He is an honorary associate professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, a retired professor of modern history from the University of Zurich, and serves as the president of the Research Foundation Switzerland-Turkey. Kieser is widely recognized for his rigorous archival scholarship on the political transitions of the Middle East, with a particular focus on how the collapse of Ottoman coexistence gave rise to ethno-nationalism and state-sponsored atrocities. He has authored several seminal texts, including “Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide” (2018), “When Democracy Died: The Middle East’s Enduring Peace of Lausanne” (2023), and “Turkey’s Violent Formation” (2024), establishing his work as essential to understanding the roots of modern Middle Eastern conflicts.
